Author
Topic: QLD: Census - PT data (Read 1242 times)

In greater Brisbane, slightly fewer people caught the train, bus or walked to work on census day - August 9, 2016 - compared with five years earlier.

But more people drove themselves to work or rode a bicycle than in 2011.

There was a higher percentage of women commuting on trains and buses in Brisbane compared with men, and men were more likely to drive or ride a bicycle, while walking was almost equally as popular for both genders.

People were more than twice as likely to opt for walking to their jobs rather than cycling in Brisbane.

There were also others who chose to catch a ferry, taxi or drive a truck.

While more than 870,000 Brisbane residents travelled to work using one method of transport in 2016 - up 60,000 people on five years earlier - there were 49,157 people working from home and 103,120 did not go to work on the day.

Griffith University urban research expert Matthew Burke said public transport use was up across the country, with more people choosing rail in particular.

"But that's very much a story of cities such as Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast," Dr Burke said.

"It's not a story about Brisbane, which if anything, has dragged the national growth rates down."

Dr Burke said the bad news was people were driving to work more and using active transport less.

"We are walking and cycling less, not more, contrary to most planners' expectations," he said.

"Cheaper petrol, low fuel taxes and our continued investments in freeways, toll roads and intelligent transport systems to make roads better and better for car movements just makes driving irresistible."

Dr Burke said Brisbane was doing much better than the national averages for public transport use and was on the average for walking and cycling.

"So we aren't laggard by any means," he said.

"But the heavy rail systems in Sydney and Melbourne have experienced tremendous patronage growth in recent years that Brisbane missed out on.

"Without a major shift in transport expenditures we will likely be looking at a very similar set of figures in five years time."

Across the state, almost 1.5 million Queenslanders used a car to get to work, up almost 8 per cent from 1.37 million in 2011.

In Australia, almost 69 per cent of the working population commuted by car, and 5 per cent travelled as a passenger.

Census program manager Bindi Kindermann said the results showed interesting insights into how people started their work day, helping governments, councils, business and other organisations plan for the future.

"Australians are still very much primarily reliant on cars, with the census revealing that car was the most common method of travel to work in all states, territories and capital cities," she said.

Ms Kindermann said residents of Adelaide recorded the highest rate of people who drove to work, accounting for almost 80 per cent of single-method trips, while residents of Canberra recorded the highest rate of people walking or cycling to work, perhaps reflecting its small size and town planning.

It is important to realise the Census data is across all suburbs. The public transport mode share for journeys into and out of Brisbane CBD is greater than 60%.

The public transport network in Brisbane and suburbs is radially fixated. It is no surprise then that journeys other than CBD public transport journeys are not popular. Our public transport network is dysfunctional. We need proper bus network reform and a rail network that delivers frequency around the clock. What we have at present is a disconnected low frequency shambles. The Census data confirms that.

More cross suburban connectors and improved rail frequency, with proper feeder bus networks will go a long way to lifting public transport patronage and help ameliorate some of the road meltdown congestion.

TransLink, DTMR, and a succession of Governments have failed overall. We need a proper statutory authority - we suggest Public Transport Queensland to administer and deliver public transport for Queensland. [ Public Transport Queensland? > https://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=12341.0 ]

The present mess of various incompetent agencies in silos of mediocrity and their bumbling communication must be broken.

There was a higher percentage of women commuting on trains and buses in Brisbane compared with men, and men were more likely to drive or ride a bicycle, while walking was almost equally as popular for both genders.

why is this even relevant ffs...very well....take a look at how many utes on the roads.......if that is classified as 'commuting to work' then its plain obvious.Dr burke better get used to seeing more trucks on the road thanks to brisbanes current/future building/renovation boom << he should be more concerned with this as 1 truck takes at least 2 up to 7 car spaces on our roads....

Quote

"But the heavy rail systems in Sydney and Melbourne have experienced tremendous patronage growth in recent years that Brisbane missed out on.

we have #railfail.....those two cities have experienced massive population growth.

Quote

"Without a major shift in transport expenditures we will likely be looking at a very similar set of figures in five years time."

Across the state, almost 1.5 million Queenslanders used a car to get to work, up almost 8 per cent from 1.37 million in 2011.

Dr burke has little clue as to why things are the way they are.Why people will have to rely on cars as incomes shrink.He needs to adknowledge the most concerning figure from the census.

Quote

The census shows the percentage working more than 40 hours a week dropping to 26% in 2016 from 29% in 2011.

That is hugely concerning for various reasons.1. It means smaller pay cheques....so people are now forced to commute to a second job and/or do service based gig work to supplement their income. This usually requires turning to ridesharing,gumtree,airtasker and other distributed apps. Ultimately requiring a car.